I am deeply sorry about the way I treated you last night. I have

gotten up before dawn, Dick, to tell you how miserably sorry I am. Or

I suppose it is really dawn, for all the east is red and purple. I am

writing on Father’s desk in the library. Everybody is asleep. But I

haven’t slept. I have been sitting up in bed all night, thinking of my

cruelty to you. You see, this is the way it was, Dick. When you kissed

me like that, it was really just as if somebody passing me in the

street had kissed me. I mean it was as unexpected as that. My only

feeling was terror. That is why I struck out like that—just as you

would in the dark, if something strange were striking at you. You’d

strike back. Besides, no one has ever kissed me before. Not like that,

I mean. No one has ever been in love with me before. And you see,

anyway, I have thought right along—never thought anything else—that

you came to Green Doors on Clare’s account. It was Clare you always

talked to. I didn’t know you even looked at me. This may seem strange

to you, Dick. Now I see that thinking that was pretty stupid. You have

been shy with me—just as one _is_ toward somebody one really loves.

Clare has explained it. She came out on the terrace right after you

went. I was crying. She found out what was the matter. And she showed

me how cruel and stupid I had been. I know now that it was a great

honor you did me in asking me to marry you, Dick. To love somebody

like that and tell them so and have them do what I did—strike out at

you like a serpent—must have been too terrible. The blow on your face

was nothing to the blow on your heart, I know. But now I am cool and

all night I have been thinking. It isn’t just because Clare says so

but now I _feel myself_ how I owe you a deep apology. And I am going

to tell you why, even if I hadn’t hated your kissing me the way you

did, I would still have _said_ the same thing, that I couldn’t feel

toward you as you do toward me. You asked me, you know, if there was

anybody else. If I was engaged. I told you no. Well, that was true. Of

course I am not engaged. But now I am going to tell you something to

prove how sorry I am I treated you as I did last night and to show you

how I trust you—and how fond I am of you really, now that I see things

about you and Clare in a truer light than I have been seeing them. It

is this, Dick. I am not engaged, and I am not likely to be. But I love

some one terribly. I love him the way you love me, I guess. But he

doesn’t love me any more than I love you. So that makes things even

between us, Dick, doesn’t it? Don’t tell Clare this, of course. Or any

one. I have told you to even things up, and to make you see that if I

have hurt your pride terribly, and been cruel to you, the same thing

has been done to me. All I said to Clare last night was that I should

write to you and apologize and beg you to go on being friends and not

stop coming to Green Doors. Clare and Father will miss you, Dick, if

you stay away, and believe it or not, I think I shall too. I don’t

know how I ever behaved so brutally as I did last night, but I am

always making mistakes and doing terrible things. Please burn this

letter.

Affectionately—truly—Petra.

When Lewis looked up from that letter, Dick had said quickly, “It isn’t

McCloud, Lewis! Don’t think it for a minute. Anybody can see how _he_

feels about Petra. She could have him if she wanted him. It’s written

all over him. It’s you she means, Lewis. You. Nobody else.”

Lewis had said, “Damn you, Dick!” and then no more. He had held Dick to

their bargain from that minute, not to discuss Petra or anybody at Green

Doors ever again. He had seen to it that Dick did burn the letter as

Petra had asked. And as it charred and went up in a hot blaze between

the logs, Lewis had not reached his hand to rescue it. He had clenched

his hands instead, while his heart burned to a white heat and then

withered into charred nothingness with the letter. In that minute Lewis

had hated Dick almost as much as Clare. What had they tried to do,

between them, to this poor baffled child! Of course it was Neil she

meant. Poor Petra! And of course Neil did want her every bit as much as

she wanted him. But there was the man’s living faith—the faith neither

Clare nor Dick could comprehend as a reality—which stood between him and

Petra, forbidding them to each other.

Only now, after weeks of thinking and watching, had Lewis come to think

that it would be best for both Neil and Petra if Petra could bring

herself to accept half a loaf from life, and marry himself, if she could

care for him even a little. For she was created and designed for

giving—for motherhood, wifehood. And Lewis loved her with such utter

abandonment! Mightn’t the strength and truth of his love ultimately

force a response almost in kind?

Lewis had little hope that this was even a possibility. But he had said

his prayer—Neil’s prayer, rather—the only one Lewis had ever learned to

pray. He was saying it now, as he drew more slowly into Meadowbrook’s

environs. His nephews were expecting a romp with Lewis to-night before

their supper. Then he would be changing into evening clothes at the

Allens’, for Petra’s dinner, and would return there to sleep.

“Yes,” he assured himself, driving slowly and more slowly, “I shall lose

her forever to-night—or gain the chance of beginning to win her.” He had

decided to tell her that he had read her letter to Dick down at

Northeast and how innocent Dick had been in letting him.

“Dick, you see,” Lewis would say to Petra, “simply thought he was fixing

things up between you and me without making us wait for the last

chapter! He thought in all honesty it was I, not Neil, you meant in that

letter. Of course, I knew better.... But Petra, it isn’t broken hearts

that make for ruin and unhappiness in lives. Not ultimately, anyway. It

is broken faiths. Neil stayed away to-night—don’t you suppose—because of

something dearer to him than mere happiness. Something more blessed than

happiness.” That was part of what Lewis would say to her. And then, if

they kissed—if she let him kiss her there to-night on the edge of the

Paradise meadow—

Well! Lewis’ hope, though small, pierced his heart like a sword.

_Chapter Twenty_

The dinner was over—a medley of flowers and fruit, shining candles,

extravagantly imaginative food (Clare was no gourmand but her cook was a

prize), much banter and some conversation. The cake had crowned it all.

It was a perfectly recognizable model, two feet high or so, of the

building where Lewis had his offices, and Petra herself, done in

violet-colored gumdrops, was represented on the roof, sitting on a

typewriter and surrounded by twenty minute candelabras each holding five

candles. It was obvious that Dick had conspired with the cook. Every one

was enchanted, but Petra most of all. “What a child she is!” Lewis had

thought, with a variety of pang he had never before experienced

concerning this girl. “A baby, really!” A thousand candelabra of

birthday candles might have gone to the shining of her eyes, and her

cheeks were rosy. She clapped her hands like a child in a fairy tale ...

at least, that is something children outside of fairy tales seem not to

do, clap their hands when they are suddenly delighted.

But now they had left the dining room and come through the great hall to

a small drawing-room at one side of the street door. Lewis and his

hostess, at any rate, were there, sitting together on a sofa with ends

curved like a lyre, facing the wide arched doorway into the hall, their

backs to open French doors flooded with moonlight. Moonlight, dim

lamplight, a fire burning on a white-tiled hearth, roses in silver

vases—that was Clare’s little drawing-room to-night. Cynthia and Farwell

had drifted through the room with their cigarettes and out the French

door to the moonlit road. Farwell called back as they went, “This is

delicious, Clare! Your road is like a silver river to-night. You and

Doctor Pryne must come.”

But Clare by a glance had held Lewis where he was. She said to him in a

low voice, “I’d rather watch Petra! Isn’t she too delightful to-night!

This is the way I have dreamed her. If only all days were birthdays!”

Harry Allen had gravitated to the piano up on the dais at the side of

the great hall, and now he was drumming out jazz to make your heart

jump, while Petra and Dick danced. They did not confine themselves to

one small space on the floor in the usual way, but circled the whole

hall freely. At dinner Lewis had noticed how the relationship of these

two had changed since he had first seen them together, that fateful

Saturday in June. Then Dick had only been aware of Petra, it seemed, as

an excrescence on Clare’s life. Now they were comrades. You saw it in

the way they looked at each other, laughed at each other, teased each

other. In fact, they counted with each other every minute. This was a

development for which Lewis was totally unprepared; for Dick had kept

his promise, and since the fiasco of his and Lewis’ holiday at Northeast

Harbor had never so much as mentioned Petra the few times they had met.

So Lewis had rather taken it for granted that Petra’s naïve and

illusioned letter had destroyed any possibility of an honest relation

between them. From what ground had the present happy intimacy evolved?

Lewis could not guess. When the cake had been brought in and set on the

cleared table in front of Petra and she had clapped her hands, Dick who

was beside her had kissed her cheek. It was a brotherly caress, hearty

and genuine. But Lewis’ heart had stood still. Was this to be the

answer? Why not! How unconscionably unimaginative and stupid he had

been!

Lewis and Clare were in a position to see the dancers during much of

their way around the great hall. But Dick and Petra seemed not aware of

the little drawing-room and their audience there. They might have been

dancing out under the moon alone, so unconscious they appeared of

anybody’s eyes or attention. Dick held Petra as if she were a delightful

glass doll that might break. And Petra gave the impression of glass.

Brittle. Lovely. Her birthday gown made Lewis think of spun glass, it

was so stiff and fragile. Even her fantastically high-heeled slippers

seemed glassy. And her forehead, leaning against Dick’s bowed-down

forehead in the latest absurd mode of the dance, added the last aspect

of brittle fragility to what they were doing.

“Petra and Dick are great friends now,” Clare said suddenly. “You can

imagine, Doctor Pryne, how that gratifies me.”

“Yes?” he said. “Yes. It’s very nice.” Lewis did not mind the idiotic

sound of his own words. Clare simply did not count enough for him to

listen to her. She was less than nothing to his consciousness, with

Petra out there in Dick Wilder’s arms, turning on fantastic spun-glass

heels to Harry’s intrepid, persistent, absolutely compelling jazz.

Clare was all too aware of Lewis’ indifference. Nothing to-night had

gone quite as she had planned it. If she were honest with herself, she

would have known that the imperfection of the way the birthday party was

going really consisted in its perfection. The object of the party,

Petra, had somehow, strangely, unbelievably, taken the center of the

stage and held it. Even for her father she had held it. Several times,

when Clare had said something directly to Lowell down the table, he had

been slow to turn his eyes from his daughter. And once he had not turned

them at all—merely answered his wife absently, while he continued to

smile at some silly byplay between Dick and Petra. As for Doctor Lewis

Pryne—who sat at her right during dinner—his manners were impeccable but

his attention, she had known perfectly well, was for Petra. Even when he

was not looking at the girl—and to be fair, he scarcely looked at her at

all—he heard every silly, childish thing she said, every laugh,—heard

them through the things Clare was saying to him. This had never happened

to Clare before. To sit at her own table and have all the attention

sweep over her and away from her toward another. This was something she

had never imagined or planned! It filled her with a sort of wild

unbelief in its reality. It was dreamlike. Almost nightmarish.

She said now to Lewis, “Aren’t they precious. Sweet! And everything

before them! Petra seems to have had enough of young Neil, or he of her.

Anyway, he seldom comes here now. But it was none of my doing. I was

ready to stand back of him, in spite of my cherished hope that Dick

might find his happiness in Petra. Dick told you of that hope, at

Northeast. So you know how I have planned and dreamed for both those

children, Petra and Dick. We—you and I, Doctor, between us,—seem to have

succeeded in giving Petra her chance at life. Your job, anyway, has

given her self-respect, self-confidence. And I—well, Doctor Pryne, you

know because you are wise—pray Dick never knows—it has not been too easy

for me to give her Dick. For one thing, honestly, I am not sure she is

big enough for him. I tremble at my daring in taking her ultimate

development so for granted.—Tell me—I need you to tell me, Doctor—say

that in your judgment I have not been wrong. If I thought what I have

done wasn’t to mean Dick’s happiness,—well, I should blame myself

eternally. If in trying to mend his life I have complicated it—that is a

terrible thought. For you know—he told you—how he feels about me.

Through no fault of mine. I saw it happening and I warned him. But I

thought if only he could begin to care for Petra a little, in the end—in

the end—well—he might come to care for me less. He did tell you?”

Lewis sighed. Little he cared whether she heard the sigh. And she did

hear it. He said, “If you were actually giving Dick to Petra so that he

might get over his young, romantic infatuation for you, it would, of

course, be calamitous, Mrs. Farwell. Calamitous for them both. Ghastly.

But that won’t be the way of it. If they do marry, it will be because

they have fallen healthily in love. You—and I—we are out of it. Clean

out of it. Nothing to worry us.”

“You think Dick no longer cares for me, Doctor Pryne?” Her voice was

sharper than she meant it to be.

Lewis did not reply. His hostess or not, she was abominable. He watched

the dancers.

Clare said, after a minute, “I see what you think! If only you were

right! How happy that would make me, Doctor! But life isn’t like that.

Life makes us suffer. What I am so tortured by now is the fear that in

my blundering I may not only have failed to help Dick, but I may have

involved Petra in something amounting almost to tragedy for her. If she

cares for him, as she seems to lately—if she has given up Neil for Dick,

and Dick fails her—all our hearts may break in the end. But mine the

most. For I am the cause of the muddle. I have wanted only the best for

them both. For us all. And what have I really done! I begin to fear that

Dick—no matter how hard he tries—will never be satisfied with Petra.

Knowing Dick, I ought to have known that.—But I wanted his happiness

so.”

She was crying. Unashamedly. But they were angry, baffled tears and

Lewis knew it. The unkind part was that Clare knew he knew it. But she

would show him. She would give him a demonstration of how he was wrong,

how absolutely wrong he was. She would show him that Petra had no

possible chance of being her, Clare Farwell’s, rival! After long weeks

of fearing it, to-night Clare was faced with the fact that this Doctor

Lewis Pryne was not to increase her roll of wonderful friendships. But

one slight gratification she would yet wrest from the humiliating

situation: the man might himself distrust, even dislike her; but he

should see that Dick Wilder was still her slave.

She got up and went to the door: stood by it, one bare, rather thin arm

reached up along the jamb, watching the dancers. Lewis stayed where he

was and smoked his interminable cigarettes. He was glad his hostess had

left him, but concerned for the direction her steps had taken.

This time, as Petra and Dick neared the arch of the drawing-room

doorway, they could not fail to know that they were the object of some

one’s attention. Dick wavered, let Petra go from his arms, seemed to

wake from a fragile dream.

“Want to dance, Clare?” he said.

She shook her head.

“No. But Doctor Pryne is tired of talking to just me. Come on in and

play with us.”

Lewis got up and stood by the fire. Petra came and stood irresolutely

near him, at a loss and waiting for Clare to lead the “play,” whatever

it was to be. But Clare wandered toward the French doors and stood, her

back half turned, looking out onto the moonlight road. No one said

anything. Lewis had no intention of “playing.” He was swearing angry.

Clare turned her head after a minute’s silence, during which the three

of them—Lewis, Petra, Dick—had stayed watching her, turned her head and

looked at Dick over her shoulder. Then she stepped out into the

moonlight.

Harry, oblivious that his dancers no longer existed, that the frail

dream had broken, went on pouring out jazz. Dick had followed Clare, of

course. He went as naturally and with as little fuss as if he were her

shadow. Lewis and Petra were left, silent, by the fire.

Neither of them had a thing to say. The clock ticked,—an elegant little

glass clock with glass flowers for dials, on the mantel near them. Then

they heard Cynthia’s voice out in the moonlight. “You’ll need a scarf,

Clare dear. There’s an autumn tang.”

“Oh, no. The moonlight’s warm! We’ll be right back. Get out the cards,

Lowell, and since your heart is set on it, we’ll have some poker.”

But before Farwell and Cynthia came in through the French doors, Lewis

had said quickly to Petra, “My darling, you mustn’t mind. Dick’s such a

fool he’s not worth your little finger.”

That brought Petra’s face around to Lewis’. She took hold of the high

carved back of a chair between them. Took hold hard. Eyes,

lips,—suddenly they had become the attentive eyes of her childhood,

looking outward onto a wonder-filled world. The unsullen lips of her

childhood sweetly parted with expectant breath. For just that instant it

might have been Petra back in the Cambridge apartment three years ago.

But unfortunately Lewis was totally unaware that “my darling” had come

from his lips at all. He had no cue to the transformation. And then

Cynthia and Farwell joined them and Farwell was getting out the cards.

He sent Petra for a table. But as she started to obey, she was

intercepted by Elise in the doorway. Petra was wanted on the telephone.

“Who is it?” Farwell called after his daughter. “It can’t be important.

Why do you bother?”

The maid answered, not Petra. “He didn’t give his name, sir. But he said

it _was_ very important.”

“Well, Elise, don’t interrupt us again to-night with telephone messages

or anything else,” Farwell commanded. And then to Cynthia and Lewis,

“Telephones are the devil! Damned intrusions on decent privacy! Clare

agrees with me. We’re thinking of having ’em taken out. As it is, it’s a

private number, of course, but Petra has given it to several of her

friends. Only natural, I suppose. But I detest it.”

Petra was back almost before her father was done grumbling. She came

only to the door, however, and said, “I’m terribly sorry, Father, but

I’ve got a headache. Elise is bringing the table. I couldn’t possibly

play. Tell Clare when they come in, will you? I am going to bed.”

It would have been absurdly impossible to accept illness as an

explanation of Petra’s leaving her own birthday party so suddenly, if

her story were not so borne out by her look. She had lost all the

unusual high color of the earlier part of the evening and become

extraordinarily white and peaked. Cynthia saw it as plainly as her

doctor brother. She cried, “Petra, dear child! You must let me come with

you. You do look really ill. And at your own party! It’s a shame!”

“No, don’t come, please. I’ll be perfectly all right. I just want to be

alone. Will you tell Clare, please, not to come in, afterwards,

to-night? I may be asleep and I’d rather she didn’t. Good night, Doctor

Pryne. Good night, Mrs. Allen, and Father. I’m so sorry....”

When Clare and Dick drifted in a few minutes later, it was Cynthia who

did Petra’s explaining. But by then Harry had waked to the fact that

nobody was taking advantage of his jazz and had come to the

drawing-room.

“That’s funny!” he said, breaking into his wife’s account of Petra’s

sudden desertion. “Petra didn’t go to bed, you know. She went out of the

door. I saw her. That’s why I stopped playing. I thought you and Petra

were dancing, Dick. Then I looked up and saw Petra going alone out the

front door in a tearing hurry.”

“Did she have a wrap on?” Cynthia asked, concerned.

“No. Just her pretty party frock.”

“She’s back now then,” Clare said, “and in her bed. It’s really cold.”

But she looked at Lewis, her eyes distraught. Had the woman any

compunction for what she had done? If not, it was superb acting. She was

a Duse, Lewis thought, but with her genius devoted to personal, secret

dramas.

“Anyway, I’d better go up and see how she is,” Clare murmured. “She

doesn’t have headaches like this, you know. Not suddenly. She must have

been—disturbed about something. Put out. I’ll go up. I think she’ll come

back.”

“No, don’t.” That was Lewis. He did not care how sharply he spoke. “The

child really looked ill. _And she particularly asked that you shouldn’t

go to her._”

Clare’s eyes grew wide,—darkened. She was superb! “Really? Well—” And

then to her husband she said, with a shrug. “And I wanted her party to

be a success!”

“Well, it was, my dear. It still is. And Petra’ll be all right in the

morning. She doesn’t care much for poker, anyway. Let’s start playing.

It’s going on eleven.”

But Lewis was destined to blame himself, before many hours had passed,

for dissuading Clare from going up to see about Petra. Afterwards, he

never understood why he had sat there playing poker until midnight,

after what Harry had said of Petra’s going out of the door and not up to

bed. He had been stupid to the point of imbecility. But the reason was

that Petra’s transformation when he told her Dick wasn’t worth her

little finger, while she stood holding the back of that chair, had

filled his mind so full of a simply blinding hope that there was no room

for shadows—hardly for thought itself! He had accepted her story quite

simply, when she returned from the telephone: she had a headache. He

knew, too, of course, that she was furious with Clare. Any girl would

be, under the circumstances. But for Lewis himself she had had that

look.

It was hard for Lewis to have to wait until morning to see Petra again.

That was all her going to bed in the middle of the party had meant to

him—that he must wait now until morning. He was not to tell her his love

by moonlight in the Paradise meadow, but to-morrow, in daylight, driving

her in to Boston. He had got ahead of Dick in this, and it had been

agreed he should come to Green Doors from the Allens’ a little before

eight.

He won steadily at the game they were playing, but smiled now and then

his lighted smile that had nothing to do with material, mundane

winnings.

_Chapter Twenty-One_

Cynthia, bless her heart, came down for an early breakfast with her

brother.

“If Petra’s not over her headache, what will you do? Make her stay

home?” she asked.

“I think she’ll be over it. Miss Frazier’s away on vacation, and I need

Petra more than ordinary these days.”

“You seem a trifle brutal, darling. Don’t you believe the girl had a

headache? I do. She looked terrible. I know Clare didn’t believe it, but

then she hadn’t seen her. I heard Clare telling Lowell it was temper. I

thought that was rather horrid of Clare, I must say. And now you are

almost as heartless.”

“Cynthia Pryne Allen! Do I hear criticism of Clare? I’d better take your

temperature. You look all right but I am afraid you must be delirious!”

Cynthia leaned back in her chair. She had finished her grapefruit and

black coffee. That was all she allowed herself for breakfast, having no

ambition to compete with her Harry in avoirdupois.

“No, I’m not criticizing Clare. Not exactly. But lately—well, lately

I’ve sort of come to understand Petra a little better. I feel as if I

have, anyway. I don’t think things are so frightfully easy for her at

Green Doors. Not that Clare means to be unkind. Oh, hardly! But their

temperaments don’t jibe, that’s all. Clare can’t take it in, that any

one can be so simple as Petra is. That’s the trouble, I think. She

thinks Petra’s simplicity is always covering some design. But Petra

hasn’t any design. She’s just a healthy, nice, rather sweet girl. She

seems sweet to me, anyway. Just these last few weeks I’ve grown fond of

her. You don’t have to wonder where you are with her, ever. Why, I told

Clare just last night that if I had a daughter I’d adore her to be a

second Petra. She’d be so _comfortable_ to live with.”

“Yes? And what did Clare reply, if anything?”

“That made me rather cross, Lewis. She said that I didn’t know Petra.

She said she was ‘deep.’”

“Did she mean it as insult or compliment?”

“Dear Lewis! When one woman calls another deep!—It has looked to me

lately—nights at the Country Club, when they were all there together,

the Farwells and Dick and Neil (that simply grand McCloud person, you

know)—that Clare was almost jealous of Petra. Harry’s got an idea that

that’s why Neil doesn’t come to Green Doors any more. I shouldn’t be

surprised if he’s seeing Petra secretly, somewhere else. I think Clare

suspects it too. She’s almost insufferable, anyway, the way she

questions Petra as to where she has been and what she has been doing.

And she doesn’t mind who’s there, listening. It makes one very

uncomfortable. It’s hateful for Petra.”

“Yes. One feels that,” Lewis agreed. “But it isn’t worth Petra’s

bothering about, or yours, really. Clare is—incorrigible. All the same,

she must have some nice qualities, I suppose, or she couldn’t plan

gardens so astutely, and care about the books she does care about, and

music and all. She does honestly care for those things. That’s not sham.

One can’t sham that. Do you know what I think, Cynthia? I think that

people like Clare are so awful simply because they are so close to being

really fine. If Clare were just any silly woman, ‘out for the men,’

you’d laugh at her and find her, possibly, rather touchingly human. You

might even like her. But it’s precisely because she isn’t a silly,

superficial creature that the cruelty and ugliness in her seems such

wretched cruelty, such wretched ugliness. She is an exquisite person—has

exquisite perceptions, anyway. There’s only that one unpleasant spot,

her vanity in the admiration she excites in every one around her. If she

were only sensual or selfish (openly, healthily selfish, I mean)—if she

had any mean qualities at all, like the rest of us—she’d be forgivable.

But it is the under-bogging of all this highly emphasized spirituality

with endless quicksands of vanity that gives a fellow the jitters—unless

he’s sucked under, like Dick, and suffocated in it. It is obvious that

Clare deliberately took Petra on as handicap to add to the zest of a

game that was becoming almost too easy to be exciting any longer. But

now that the handicap begins really to weigh—as it did last night—she’s

lost her poise—and her pose. Last night Clare was openly vicious. One

could sympathize—just possibly—with her wanting to vie with Petra for

Dick’s attention. But when it is in enchanting and holding Petra’s own

father she uses the girl as her foil, I must say I find it revolting.

That’s vanity gone rotten. It’s better, though, she should show her

hand. It won’t do Farwell any harm to see it. He had it coming to him. I

didn’t mind seeing him squirm last night. It’s for Petra I mind.”

Cynthia almost agreed with Lewis. But she looked very sorry. After all,

Clare Farwell had for several years made life richer and more

significant for Cynthia. Cynthia was hungry for the good and the

beautiful, as are we all when given leisure to discover ourselves. It

was hard giving Clare up as an ideal. Cynthia took a brave hold on

honesty and justice when she said, after a painful silence, “Probably

you are right, Lewis, in all you say. But I owe Clare a lot. And I’m

going to try to stay friends with her and to like her. I mayn’t go on

idealizing her as I have. I can’t any more. I’ve seen too much, and last

night, as you say, finished the revelation. Any one could see that she

was vicious toward Petra. But I think her friendship for me is genuine.

And I shall try to make mine for her genuine and understanding. I am

sorry for her.—And now promise me, Lewis” (he was up, ready to be off.

It was quarter to eight), “promise me at least to suggest that Petra

stays home to-day. Couldn’t I take her place? I have nothing to do. I’d

love it.”

“You’re a dear,” Lewis said. “I’ll let you know if I need you. As I

said, I’m sure Petra’s all right by now. She’s a healthy creature. I

wish I had your charity, Cynthia. I need it terribly.”

Green Doors had a hushed air. Lewis felt, from the manner of Elise who

opened the door to him, that the curtain had not yet been rung up, as it

were, and that it was a little unreasonable of him to expect to be let

in on the stage while the hands were still busy shifting scenery from

night to morning. But when he asked for Petra, Elise’s face cleared.

Petra, since her job, had become a worker, one of the hands. Part of

real life. If it was only Petra he wanted, well, Petra could be produced

easily enough.

“She hasn’t come down to breakfast yet. She ought to have been down half

an hour ago. The cook was just asking me, was she coming.”

“She had a headache last night. Perhaps she is not able to get up. Will

you please go and see? Tell her that Doctor Pryne is calling and that

it’s all right, he’ll go along without her, unless she’s better.”

Lewis walked back and forth over a space of twelve of the floor tiles in

the great hall while he waited for Elise’s return. He counted them each

time. They were beautiful tiles. Gray-green and glistening with a silken

sheen. The maid seemed a long time away. But she came at last,

presenting to his expectant and quickly questioning look a face of blank

perplexity.

“Miss Farwell didn’t sleep in her room last night,” she said. “Her bed

is opened, just as I left it, and her night things laid out. I can’t

think—”

“Take me to her room. Let me see it.” Lewis had the woman by the elbow

and was pushing her toward the staircase. It was as if he had taken in

Harry’s words about Petra’s not going to bed but out the front door for

the first time. Without a wrap! And Clare had said, “She’ll be in bed by

now then. It’s really October.”—Something like that, anyway.

As Elise led the way up the stars, Lewis knew, absolutely, that he had

lived through these very moments before. He knew also that the

dénouement was to be a tragic one. He knew beyond this that he and

nobody else in the whole world was responsible and to blame. There was

nothing dreamlike in all this. It was as if he were more, not less,

sensibly conscious than ordinarily.

Lewis had no hesitation whatever about entering the room which the maid

whispered to him was Petra’s. It was a corner room: two windows on each

side. He looked about on perfect order. Glazed chintz draperies thickly

pleated, like cardboard, were drawn across the window-panes, pulled

there by the maid who had opened Petra’s bed for the night, as a screen

for her undressing. Petra would have pushed them wide and opened the

windows if she had slept here, of course. The curtains being drawn, and

the windows shut, was evidence that she had not. Lewis turned to the

bed. A pleated spread to match the curtains had been carefully removed

and laid across two chairs, stiff and unwrinkled. The sheets were turned

down. Across the foot of the bed a white nightgown was laid out, and

down on the floor a pair of high-heeled mules, gay with pompoms. The

dressing table, in one corner, with its rows of silver and glass-topped

jars and bottles, was in exquisite order. Everything in the room was

orderly—untouched. Even in his condition of fearful presentiment of

evil, Lewis looked for the picture he had given Petra yesterday for her

birthday. Had she hung it here in her bedroom, as he had hoped she

would? No, there was a painting by Georgia O’Keefe on one wall,—a

picture Petra couldn’t possibly understand. Nothing else.

Strange to be looking hungrily here for signs of Petra’s personality

when Petra herself was lost! Strange to care that there was nothing here

in Petra’s own place, her room, to speak her real! Stranger yet that

there was nothing, not a book, not a flower,—not a scrap of living

interest anywhere! It might have been a stage bedroom. All the

properties necessary for the idea that somebody did use it to sleep

in—yes. But you must wait for the actress to come on, to know what she

was like. _A stage bedroom!_ And yet this was Petra’s retreat, her very

own room, her place. Lewis almost shuddered at it. The Maid of the

Alder—the hollow woman. It might have been her cave! It was so soulless.

The brilliant October sunlight turned the shut curtains into a glaring

purplish pink. The image of a peacock spreading a mammoth spectroscopic

tail was embossed on the oyster-colored rug. There were smaller peacocks

on the backs of the chairs. Suddenly Lewis stopped looking for signs of

Petra. When she came in here, herself, her personality, was shut away,

outside the four walls of her bedroom. He felt that it must beat around

the walls all night to get in. She slept in a place shut away from

herself. This was madness! She wasn’t here. Hadn’t been here ever. Not

really. Where _was_ she?

Elise had followed him in. He turned to her and all she saw was an

efficient, cool person who would make everything all right. She was

beginning to get over her scare. Doctor Pryne was not scared.

“Has Miss Farwell any other room than this? A sitting room?”

“No, sir. There is the bath. I looked in there when I came up. She

didn’t use her towels last night. I don’t think she came into the room

at all after I fixed it, sir.”

“Miss Farwell wore a white dress last night. Whitish, anyway. See if

that is in her closet, please.”

Elise hurried to the closet. In spite of the way Doctor Pryne’s demands

came—like firecrackers crackling—Elise still trusted to his coolness. It

kept her cool.

“No, sir. That dress isn’t here. It was a new one.”

“Does Miss Farwell ever sleep anywhere else than here, when she’s at

home? At the guest house, for instance? Or in another bedroom?”

“No, sir. We don’t keep the beds made up, except when there are guests.”

“Have you any ideas at all where Miss Farwell _might_ have gone last

night? To sleep?”

“No, sir. I thought she came to bed early, sir. I stayed up last night

to close up the house. Mrs. Farwell told me then that Miss Farwell had

gone to bed early and that we were to be quiet. I mean, sir, we stood

just outside Miss Farwell’s door, talking in whispers, not to wake Miss

Farwell, when Mrs. Farwell said good night to me. Mrs. Farwell thought

just as I did that Miss Farwell was here in bed, asleep.”

“Would you be able to tell if any of Miss Farwell’s clothes were gone? A

coat, for instance. It was cold last night. She was dressed in a

low-necked, sleeveless dance frock. She couldn’t go away anywhere like

that.”

“Oh, no, sir, she couldn’t. I’ll see, sir.”

Lewis went to the windows, one after another, and yanking the cords that

worked the curtains, let in the light. From each cord dangled a heavy

silk peacock for tassel. Ugh!

The maid turned from the open sliding doors of the wardrobe which took

up one whole side of the room.

“Everything is here, sir. She hasn’t so many clothes! Lovely dresses,

but not many. I’d know if anything was gone, I am sure.”

“What time did you lock the house up last night? If Miss Farwell had

gone out for a walk, say, and came back after you locked it, could she

have got in?”

“It was after you had all gone, I locked it. After the party. Around

midnight. Miss Farwell hasn’t a key. There aren’t any. One of the

servants bolts the doors and windows the last thing at night and that is

the only time they are locked. If Miss Farwell had come to the door and

found it locked, though, she had only to ring the bell. Somebody would

have heard. Or she could have knocked on her father’s window. He has a

bedroom right on the terrace.”

Although Doctor Pryne’s coolness was still consoling her somewhat,

Elise’s face, during these rapid questions and answers, had gone

gradually dead white and her knees were shaking. She presumed at this

point to ask a question on her own part: “Oh, sir, do you think anything

has happened? There’s the river beyond the meadows....”

If looks could kill, the look Elise got from Doctor Lewis Pryne in

return for her own one question would have struck her down on the

spot.—So she said later, when she told the whole story of what she

called the “inquest” to Clare,—told it with tears and to the

accompaniment of many careful promptings. She knew from that look that

her idea of Miss Farwell as a possible suicide angered the doctor even

more than it frightened herself. So she said hastily, shaking more than

ever, but the color a little returning to her blanched cheeks, “Or it

might be she’s kidnaped. Mrs. Farwell is one of the richest women in the

State of Massachusetts. It said so in the _Transcript_. They might know

she would give anything to get Miss Farwell back. Do you think it’s a

kidnaping, sir? Oh, poor Mrs. Farwell! This will break her heart!”

She was weeping openly by then. But she hoped it would be she and no

other who told Mrs. Farwell the news. And certainly nobody could get

ahead of her in telling it to the other stage-hands at Green Doors. It

would be strange if anybody got ahead of her, since she was the very

first to learn of the disappearance and the inquest had begun with her,

so to speak.

“You say Mr. Farwell sleeps downstairs? Take me to his room. Hurry!”

Again the doctor had her by an elbow, pushing her ahead of him. Again

they were on the stairs, only this time he was propelling her downward.

But in spite of the steady pressure of the doctor’s fingers on her

elbow, and his air of a perfect right to command, she found the courage

to suggest, “Hadn’t we better tell Mrs. Farwell, sir? Mr. Farwell won’t

like being disturbed at this hour. Mrs. Farwell won’t mind. She’s a

lovely woman.”

All the doctor said to that was, “Mr. Farwell’s room. Which way?” They

were at the foot of the stairs.

But Elise never told Lewis which way, for he had dropped her arm. No,

more than that, he actually pushed her away. Petra was coming toward

them through the great hall from the street door. She had left it wide

open behind her. The door was a wide, high plaque of golden light; and

Petra against it, in her glassy frock, was more like a ghost than a

girl—just that first minute.

“What is it? What is the matter, Elise? Why, good morning, Doctor

Pryne.”

Yes, it was Petra, not ghostly now. Lewis’ eyes had adjusted themselves

to the morning sunlight flooding the door. It was Petra all right.

Reticent. Nice-mannered. Pleasant.

Lewis whirled on the staring maid. “Thanks for all you did,” he said.

“Go away now.” Elise went, but no farther than the dining room; from

there she heard most of what passed between the doctor and Miss Farwell

and reported it concisely, in spite of excited weeping, to Mrs. Farwell

herself a few minutes later.

“You didn’t sleep in your room last night, Petra. I was frightened. I am

afraid I frightened the maid. Are you all right?”

“Yes. I could see something was the matter with Elise. I am sorry either

of you was worried. I meant to get in before anybody noticed. I’m all

right, thanks.”

There she stood, quite close to him,—real. In her party frock and her

fragile high-heeled slippers, immaculate and self-possessed. Even her

hair was as shining and groomed as last night, but with a new touch

added: a narrow violet band was tied around her head, back of her ears,

holding the curls in place. It was that ribbon with its flat little bow

at the side of her head, which infuriated Lewis.

“Where did you sleep last night?”

Elise, listening from the dining-room, where after all it was her place

to be ready to serve Miss Farwell her breakfast when she came in for it,

was amazed at the harshness of the tone putting the question. Doctor

Pryne had been sharp and quick with herself—but not harsh like this.

This was downright rude—and to Miss Farwell! But Miss Farwell was equal

to him. She was equal to any one. She was every bit as real a lady as

was Mrs. Farwell herself, in spite of being so different. Elise knew.

She had lived in the house with Miss Farwell for three years now.

Petra said, “Somehow I don’t think that you have a right to ask, Doctor

Pryne. Not like that exactly.”

“I have. I have been in hell. Scared out of my wits. I thought you—I

didn’t know what had happened to you. You’ve got to tell me where you

were, Petra,—where you slept.”

Then Lewis saw that although Petra was very erect in the flooding

sunlight, with brushed hair, and coolly half-smiling lips, her face was

haggard beyond belief. Austerely haggard.

“Petra—!” he urged again—almost gently now—then stopped. “My dear, have

you had breakfast?” But she had brushed her hair, tied a ribbon about it

in an infinitely enchanting way,—so why not breakfast too? Why did he

worry about so trivial a matter in any case!

“Yes. We—I had breakfast. Hours ago.” But she looked down, away from

Lewis’ look, very quickly as she changed the “we” to “I.” Now that she

was looking down, Lewis could see how, over night, her face had thinned.

He could almost see the bones of her cheek through the transparent

flesh.

She looked up as if to ward off his discernment. “Doctor Pryne! Could

you get along at the office without me to-day? I am—I think I am—well,

perhaps too tired.”

“No, Petra! I can’t go off and leave you. You must come with me. Now.

You needn’t work. But I’m not going to leave you to Clare. We can talk

in the car.”

But Petra misunderstood the reason for his insistence. She had suddenly

remembered that Janet wouldn’t be in the office. The night she had

passed had blurred her memory of ordinary things. But now she took hold

of ordinary things again, even steadied herself by their cognizance. She

was young, strong, and no shirker.

“Oh, of course, I must come. I had forgotten Janet wasn’t coming. Truly

I had. Will you wait while I change? I saw your car outside. We’ll still

be in time. It is still early.”

Lewis went out to wait in the car. He would not think. There was not one

single thing that ordinary conjecture could do for him. Petra must

confide in him before he would ever be able to think one straight

thought again. In an amazingly short time she came running out, pulling

on a polo coat over one of her office dresses. She waited till she was

in the car beside him to put on her felt hat. Petra’s hats and coats,

Lewis had noticed gradually, as the summer wore on, had nothing of the

magic and unique loveliness of her frocks. They were merely concealing

and casual. In fact, this same violet-colored felt, with its moderately

wide and down-tilting brim, had sufficed her all summer in town, and

this polo coat was the only coat he had ever seen her wear.

“I’m sorry that I had to keep you waiting.” She said it in her ordinary

ingenuous and clear, clipped tones as he started his engine.

That she was not wavering in her good manners, that not so much as her

voice was nicked by the night’s experience (whatever it had been!),

brought all Lewis’ anger sweeping back. What was she made of! She might

play this game with Clare, years on end, if she liked,—this game of good

manners covering a secret, vital, beating heart. But she could not play

it with Lewis himself any longer. They were to understand each other

now. He felt capable of wrenching Petra’s secret from her heart with the

strength of his bare hands. Her reticence—it should go down. He would

destroy it. Never in his life had he been more exasperated.

Then they came to the one sharp turn in Clare’s beloved little country

road, and Lewis’ violent feelings almost ended in a violent smash; for a

stalled roadster was there, taking up the middle of the way. Only by a

superhuman pulling of his whole steering gear to one side, then

steadying the bounding car among threatening tree boles and so somehow

getting it back to the road, did Lewis avoid calamity. Back, safe in the

road, Lewis pressed his accelerator and sped on without a backward

glance or even a curse at the driver of the stalled car. Lewis had seen

the man well enough in that split second when he jammed on the brakes

and turned the wheel. It was Neil McCloud, on his knees, struggling to

get a tire either on or off one of the wheels of his gaudy roadster.

Neil McCloud, on the almost unused road to Green Doors, not fifteen

minutes after Petra had appeared from her mysterious night away from

home! If the tire had not punctured, Neil could have been a quarter of

the way back to Boston by this time. And he would have been. Certainly

he had not meant Lewis and Petra to pass him.

Lewis shut his lips and waited for Petra to speak. If she would only

exclaim, “Wasn’t that Neil?” Or “Why didn’t you stop? That man needed

help!” Or she might say, “Whatever is Neil McCloud doing out here so

early!” Yes, Petra might say practically any inane thing at this minute,

and Lewis, God help him, would have believed it ingenuous. It was her

saying nothing that was so blasting....

They had rushed on for almost a full minute’s damning silence before

Lewis gave up his desperate hope that Petra would say some innocent word

and looked at her. Her face under the rakish, slouched felt hat was

utterly colorless, but her eyes were _swimmingly bright_. Lewis could

see that. And even as he looked, although she did not turn her face or

give the slightest voluntary sign that she was conscious of his regard,

her pallor vanished. Fire kindled on her cheeks.

Now Lewis knew why he had been so bitterly angry all these minutes since

Petra’s safe return, with her hair brushed to glisteningness, and a

violet ribbon binding her curls. Intuition had outleapt conjecture. Even

before Petra had spoken a word, while she had stood, an angel, against

the bright gold plaque of the October sunlight filling the doorway,

Lewis had known that he hated her beyond reason, that he loved her

beyond reason—more than he had ever loved her before,—and that she was

not his.

_Chapter Twenty-Two_

Lewis gathered the morning’s mail out of the box let into the office

door, and passing through the reception room, shut himself into his own

office. He had let Petra out at the street entrance and then driven on

to find a parking place for his car. She had come up ahead of him and

would be in the dressing room now. He put the mail down on his desk and

settled himself into his chair.

This was Tuesday, the morning Lewis gave to the clinic. But he must sort

his mail first. He could not hear Petra come out of the dressing room

and move around in the reception-office, but he was as conscious of all

her motions out there beyond his shut door as if she were making them in

his heart. He saw her looking down, glancing up, picking up the

telephone. She must stop moving about in his consciousness....

He was here, alone, with the day’s work before him. Why, he needn’t even

think about Petra if he didn’t want to, still less let her move about,

looking up, looking down, picking up the telephone, through the very

tissues of his heart.

But what was it Petra had said to McCloud that day of the miracle? Lewis

knew it by heart, it was often in his mind; yet now he was groping for

it confusedly! He put his head into his hands. Was this it?—“Love is the

word. You must say that. Try to say ‘I love.’”

And McCloud had said it—while the shackles of hate and rebellion fell

away and left him a free man—free in love. If Lewis’ shackles could only

fall, as had Neil’s! If he could only love Petra and not hate her, then

he would be able to bear, perhaps, not having her. And hatred of Petra

seemed to make him hate everything else. What was even his work to him

now! He was bored by the sight of this pile of letters. He was unnerved,

paralyzed. But love does not unnerve and paralyze. It isn’t in its

nature. Hate does that. Yes, if only he could say, as Neil had said, “I

love!”

But how could he say it? How could an ordinary person like himself love

as the saints love? Well, Neil was no saint and he had said it. But the

Little Flower herself had helped Neil. She wasn’t helping Lewis. And why

should she? Lord have mercy on him, a sinner!

Lewis lifted his head from his hands. He must get to work, anyway. That

meant he must begin to use his mind—stop writhing! That was all his mind

had done ever since he had seen that hot blush spread over Petra’s face.

He and Petra had scarcely spoken to each other on the twenty-mile drive

which had been made in less time than Lewis cared to remember now. What

had he thought speed would do for the situation? But here was this bunch

of mail. He’d got to concentrate. This was his life, his job, here under

his hand. His plain duty.

Lewis tore open an envelope. Inside was a scrawl from Nelson, the brain

surgeon, giving the hour set for a certain Eric Larsen’s operation.

Nine-thirty, this morning. The chances of the man’s recovering were

slim, Lewis knew, but there was no choice; an operation there must be.

Lewis’ responsibility had ended, once he had passed the man on to

Nelson, of course. But he had promised Eric Larsen to go with him to the

operating room and stand by until the affair was over. Lewis had been at

the hospital yesterday just before driving out to Meadowbrook; had spent

the better part of an hour beside Larsen’s bed in the midst of the ward.

That Larsen did not once rouse to the point of recognizing him had not

made Lewis feel the time wasted. Who was he to say that the man’s

consciousness—at some incommunicable level—was not aware of his friend

at hand, sympathetic and hopeful for him. And when Larsen came out of

ether this morning, if he did come out, it would be no strange, chance

nurse whom his glance should meet, but the one person who knew all about

his failures, his crimes,—and his hopes of regeneration: the only friend

he laid claim to, Lewis himself.

But nine-thirty! That meant that Lewis must get along. The rest of this

mail must be handed over to—Petra.

“Let me love again! Give me the love to love You with. Not for my sake.

For Eric Larsen’s sake. He needs me now, this minute, worthless as I am.

Give me this love so that I may go on and do this one morning’s work

that You have given me. Make your gifts whole—the work and the love to

do it with.—For this suffering Eric Larsen’s sake, not mine, who am

unworthy, Lord.”

Lewis was looking around for his hat, as he prayed. There it was,

knocked onto the floor somehow. The office certainly needed Miss

Frazier. He collected the hat and snatched up the remaining bunch of

letters. And as he performed these simple, objective acts, the shackles

fell. There was no vision, no sensible response from on High. Nothing

like that. Nothing in the world—but hatred and anger dissolving from his

consciousness with the rapidity of light. “Deo Gratias” was all Lewis

breathed in recognition of the Spirit’s blowing, and in another instant

he was out in the reception office, by Petra’s desk.

Petra was talking to McCloud over the telephone. Lewis recognized the

vibrations of McCloud’s voice, although he caught nothing of the words.

Petra, glancing up at her employer, said quickly, interrupting the

voice, “The doctor’s here, Neil. Waiting to speak to me. Call me up when

I get back from lunching with Dick. Two this afternoon. Good-by,” and

put the instrument down sharply.

“I’m in a tearing hurry, Petra,” Lewis said. “You’ll have to go over

these letters. Clip all that look personal together. Whether they’re

marked personal or not. Make notes about the rest on the envelopes. If

anything urgent comes up, I’ll be at the hospital till noon, anyway, but

don’t call me for anything there till after eleven. No matter how

urgent. I’m watching an operation. I’ll be back here by two, and if it’s

possible, I’ll let you go home then. There’s aspirin in the right top

drawer of my desk. Better take two. If that Philadelphia man shows up or

calls, tell him I’ll see him at three, with the boy, here. But aside

from that, keep the afternoon clear. I don’t like your looking so tired.

Think you can stick it until two?”

“Oh, yes! I’m perfectly all right. The aspirin will help a lot.

Everything will be all right here. Is it Eric Larsen—the operation?”

Petra had a special interest in Eric Larsen, the big shambling Swede,

with his shifty eyes and oddly contrasting child-like trust in the

goodness and power of Doctor Pryne. But she had been almost afraid of

him when he first started coming. She had hidden her nervousness,

however, and even Janet had not guessed what an ordeal those first few

visits had been. Soon fear had turned to pity. Then had come the

afternoon when Eric Larsen had appeared before her desk, roaring drunk

and dangerously ugly, just after Doctor Pryne had gone for the day.

Petra, though in a very agony of terror, had stood by Janet when she

insisted they must get him quietly back to his lodging house and up to

his bedroom safe. Janet said that otherwise he would spend the night in

jail and that wouldn’t help what Doctor Pryne was doing for him,—now

would it! The next day Doctor Pryne had been appalled by their temerity,

or tried to seem so; but the truth was, and they both knew it, that he

was, in his heart, delighted.—So now, naturally, Petra had a special

interest, if this was the day they were operating on Eric Larsen.

“Yes, it’s Larsen,” Lewis replied. “Nine-thirty. If he pulls through,

we’ll write all about him to his mother in Upsala. She may send for him

to come home. Almost any mother would now, in spite of everything.”

Petra tingled with gratification. Why, this was the way Doctor Pryne

talked with Janet herself, confiding plans and hopes to her concerning

his cases! To cover up her sudden delight she said again, “Everything

will be all right here. Don’t give anything a thought, Doctor

Pryne.”—How ready she was to forget his unreasonableness of the early

morning, now that he was treating her not only with the respect he gave

Janet, but almost with the same intimacy of confidence! Perhaps he

hadn’t been really angry with her, after all, nor intended to humiliate

and wound her. Perhaps it was only because she had been so terribly

tired Petra had felt, suddenly, in the hall at Green Doors early this

morning, that Doctor Pryne disliked and mistrusted her. It must have

been just her stupid mistake. Even without his being so sweet now, she

would have come to realize her stupid mistake, given a little time. For

Doctor Pryne would never use the tone she thought he had used to her,

even if he had wanted to; he was too innately kind. And his silence all

the long drive in had had nothing to do with her, as she in her mean

selfish egoism had thought it had! He had been worrying about Eric

Larsen. About the operation. Naturally, he wouldn’t want to talk!—Now,

if only Petra weren’t just a little frightened about Teresa, she would

be happy indeed! For Doctor Pryne had said, “If he pulls through, we’ll

write all about him to his mother in Upsala. She may send for him to

come home. Almost any mother would now, in spite of everything.” _We

will write. We._ Not _I_! She might have been Janet!

The happiness of feeling herself not only reinstated but lifted even

higher than ordinary in Doctor Pryne’s good will did more for Petra than

the two aspirin tablets which she immediately and obediently gulped

down. She was hardly tired at all now, in spite of having had no sleep.

Lewis got back to the office before Petra had returned from lunching

with Dick. He supposed that date must have been made before last night.

He left his door open so that he would hear when Petra came in.

He heard her step at last and called out to her. “I’m back, Petra.

Please come in here.”

He was surprised that she neither answered nor came, for a long minute.

But he felt her there, all that tense, hesitant minute, just beyond the

line of his vision. He knew, by some sixth sense, that she was

struggling mightily with herself to obey his command. Then she came.

“But what is it? What has happened?” Lewis was up and around the desk

the instant he saw her face. “Petra! You frighten me, looking like

that!”

“Oh, no, I don’t. You’re like some kind of god, above everything. Above

being frightened.”

“You’d better tell me what’s happened, though. You’ve no reason to be

angry with me, anyway. What have I done?”

“I’m not angry with you. You haven’t done anything. How is Larsen?”

“Larsen’s dead. But don’t cry. Everything was done that could be. He

just had to die, I guess. _Don’t cry._”

“I’m not crying. Or am I? I thought I wasn’t!” She was wiping the tears

from her face with the back of her wrist. “We’ll never write that letter

to his mother in Upsala now, will we!”

“It may be better so. I’m afraid she was never much of a mother, you

know. What has happened between you and Dick, Petra? Anything you want

to tell me? I can see you have had some sort of a shock.”

“I have. It’s my letter. The one I wrote him. You read it, he said. That

simply idiotic letter. I wrote it because I was sorry for Dick. I

thought I’d been all wrong about him and Clare. I thought I’d been cruel

to him! I thought I’d insulted him, unforgivably. So I told him why I

couldn’t—couldn’t marry him. And you read it. And I won’t work here any

more. I couldn’t, now. But where can I work? How can I earn money? I

want never to see you again.”

“I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about, Petra. Why you don’t

want to work for me, I mean, or see me again. But that’s all right. No

reason I should know. There are other jobs. We’ll find you one. Is that

all that makes you—that makes you look like this? I thought something

terrible had happened. I really did.”

“Something has. Worse than his showing you that letter and your knowing

everything about me!” She stopped, took off her hat, dropped it into the

patients’ chair. That incongruously worn-looking, slouchy felt hat! Her

hands went to her hair, pressing it back from her forehead. Then,

standing very straight, and with eyes on the window, not Lewis, she

said, “Dick says that things are wearing ‘pretty thin’ between my father

and Clare. He says that he and Clare belong to each other ‘by right of

understanding and sympathy.’ He says he worships her and that—that she

kissed him. On the road. Last night. When they went out. You remember?

He says Clare wants me to know. He says Clare thinks that they owe it to

me, to _let_ me know. He says Clare is so fond of me that for a long

time—for months—she has tried to think that black was white, and white

black, so that she might not lose me as her daughter. He says Clare

feels more a traitor to me than to my father. He says Clare feels that I

need her more than my father needs her. He says Clare will never, never

stop loving me and taking care of me, as long as I will let her. He says

he means both financially and spiritually. He says it would simply break

Clare’s heart if I change in my feelings toward her simply because she

has changed in her feelings toward my father. He says Clare trusts me to

be objective and detached in this difficult situation. More difficult

for Clare than for any of us, but she is being big and brave. He says

Clare wants him, Dick, to help me to a sane, large-minded, unselfish

point of view.... But before he said anything at all, he swore me to

secrecy about what he was going to say. They are going to wait to tell

Father, you see, until he has finished the last chapter of the novel. It

might upset him, hurt the book. Clare thought even of that. But there’s

even a better reason for secrecy. Clare hasn’t actually decided she will

marry Dick. Dick says he has still to get her definite promise. Dick

says she is terrified that she can’t make him absolutely happy. But she

can. He will make her see she can. So he swore me to secrecy and then

told me all this. And my first conscious act, since, is to tell you

every word he said,—the whole business. That’s the kind of a girl I am.

You see the kind of girl I am. You see. You see. You see. The kind of

girl I am. You see! You see! You—”

But Lewis by now had stopped her. He had laid firm hands on her and put

her into his own chair, even in that moment remembering that the

patients’ chair was occupied by a violet felt hat,—shabby, yes, but

since it seemed to be Petra’s only hat, probably worth preserving....

“Sit there, Petra. Stop. There’s nothing to cry about. Be as mad as you

like. But don’t cry. Dick must have gone crazy. This is beyond reason.

Of course, a woman like Clare will never give up a Lowell Farwell for

that callow fool. She never expected him to believe she would. She was

merely practicing her art—out on the moonlit road last night. Dick

happened to be there to practice on, that was all. The poor boy’s stark

crazy. And Clare was rather mad herself, last night. She was horribly

wounded in the most vulnerable part of her spirit’s anatomy.”

But Petra was going on again. Her head was in her hands, as his had been

in his hands earlier in the day. And she was talking now not to him, but

to herself, behind her hands. “They are horrible. All of them. Clare,

Father, Dick, Marian. All the people who belong to me. All I belong to.

I have known it a long time. But I was weak. I didn’t know how to

escape. How to get out. Now I shall escape. Now I shall get out. Only

how can I earn the money? I won’t work here. Not for you. But I must get

away from Green Doors.”

Lewis heard Petra, faintly, going on with it while he was off getting

her a glass of water. He came back, said, “Drink this. Stop talking. Let

me think a minute. We’re both too excited.”

She stopped talking, but she did not take the water. And she kept her

head in her hands. Lewis sat himself on the corner of the desk. He took

his cigarette case from his pocket but put it back unopened.

He said, “Petra, I understand. Everything, almost, I think. Yes, you

must get away from Green Doors. Live your own life. I thought that, you

know, that first day, when I went there to tea. And last night it was

even more clear to me. But there’s nothing to be so frightened about.

You are silly to be scared about the money. You’ll make enough. And if

you don’t want to go on with this job, well, there’s no need to. At

least, not after Miss Frazier gets back. You must stand by till then, of

course. You wouldn’t like yourself if you didn’t. But after she’s back,

you can go. I’d already been thinking about it. There are other jobs,

you know. And what about Teresa? Can’t you live with her? The way you

planned—once before?”

Petra had listened, hardly breathing. Now she lifted her ravaged young

face and looked at him, hope dawning. “But do you mean it? Am I good

enough to recommend? Any one would believe you, of course, if you said I

was. But can you really say it? You have to go slow when you dictate to

me, you know. And yesterday in that letter I spelt hypophrenia wrong.”

“I _used_ it wrong, you mean,” he said. “It was a silly word to use. I

intended feeble-mindedness and should have said it.”

“You are laughing. You are making fun!”

“Not at all. But I’m not crying.”

“And you will recommend me? In spite of the spelling and all? But—but

eighteen dollars a week won’t be enough. If I don’t live at Green Doors,

if I go right away, I must have more than that. I’m not worth it, I

know, but I _must_ have it.”

“I don’t agree with you there. You could manage well enough. But we

needn’t go into that now. There’s loads of time. We’ll work the whole

thing out together. You and I. When you are quiet and rested. Once we

face the whole situation squarely and intelligently, the next steps will

come clear. But you must go home now and rest. That’s what I called you

in for, to tell you I wouldn’t need you this afternoon.”

“Has Neil called up? I’d better wait for that.”

“The telephone hasn’t rung since I came in.” Lewis took out his

cigarette case again and this time lit a cigarette. “Drink that water,

Petra,” he said. “You know, I thought you were going to have hysterics

here a minute ago. Congratulations that you didn’t. You had cause

enough. But now I want to tell you something. About Neil—. He can’t help

you disentangle yourself from this Green Doors spider web. Or if he

does, it will only be for you and him another web that you’ll start

spinning together with the same disastrous cruelty to lives. It doesn’t

matter what you two are to each other. It doesn’t matter what has

happened between you. If you want _really_ to be free of Green Doors—of

what Green Doors stands for in your life—you’ve got to do it alone. Neil

can’t help you.”

Petra had dropped her head into her hands again, when he assured her

that the telephone had not rung since he came in; but he thought she was

listening. He went on, anyway, speaking gently and with a kind of

brittle clearness. “Neil is married, Petra. Married. Just as long as

Edyth Dayton lives, he is married. No matter how devotedly he loves

another woman, Edyth will remain, in his deepest consciousness, his

wife.... Didn’t you know that, Petra?”

Lewis had never been farther from thinking of his own interests. For the

moment he, Lewis Pryne, existed only to save this girl from calamity. He

knew now that his yesterday’s intention of asking Petra to be his wife,

no matter if she did love Neil, had been mad and wrong. A heart like

Petra’s—so passionate and whole—must break or be reborn; it could never

be patched up and used again, like a broken vase.

“Didn’t you know that, Petra,” he repeated, when the silence grew too

painful. “Didn’t you know that Neil will consider himself married, no

matter how good a divorce his wife brings home from Switzerland?”

This she did hear and looked up at Lewis. She seemed, strangely, almost

herself, he thought,—almost natural now and calm. And she bore it out by

saying in her normal, ingenuous, even winged voice, “You are talking

about Neil? But I do know that about him, Doctor Pryne. Of course Neil

won’t marry as long as Edyth lives. He can’t. I understand perfectly. It

breaks my heart.”

It was rather ironic, perhaps, that those four definite, simple,

unenigmatic words spoken in that winged voice were what now finished the

business of Lewis’ own heart’s breaking.

“Yes, of course,” he said. “I know it does. But Petra, that isn’t the

point. The point is not to break Neil’s heart, and little children’s

hearts and—and Teresa’s. You must tell everything to Teresa, I think.

She, of all people, can help you.... But now you must get home and rest.

We’ll go in my car. No, I forgot. We can’t. There’s that appointment at

three you made with the Philadelphia people. You must go in a taxi then.

But look here, Petra. What about Clare? The maid—Elise?—will have told

her all about your coming in this morning. That you didn’t sleep at

Green Doors! You’d better, after all, wait till I’m free. That’s

something we’ll have to fix up. And these people are due now, almost. My

dear, I hadn’t realized what a mess I may have made for you this morning

until this minute. Had you?”

Petra was looking at him with the strangest, faint smile. Her eyes had

come blue. They must have been not blue but dark with pain and fear all

this time, or now they would not be coming blue like this as he looked

into them! There was a little color in her face too.

“You’re sweet to care about such little things—concerning me!” she was

saying. “But I’d rather go right along on the train now. I’ll just make

it. I haven’t a dollar to spend on a taxi. Clare has already questioned

me. She called up the first thing we got in this morning. But it’s all

right. I told her I slept in the guest house under one of the steamer

blankets. I said my room seemed airless and my head ached. She and

Father have gone to the Cape, anyway, for over night. That’s why she

called up instead of waiting till I came home. She won’t be there, you

see.”

Petra put her own construction on the strange gravity that grew in

Doctor Pryne’s eyes as she made these explanations, and added quickly,

“Yes, I know. A lie. But I have had to lie to Clare. She lies to me with

action. If I was to live with her at all, I had to protect myself,

hadn’t I! But now it will end. After I am away from her, I hope I shall

never tell another lie as long as I live. I am going to try terribly

hard. It is Neil who has made me ashamed of my lies. Teresa never knew

about them, of course. That’s why Neil stopped coming to Green Doors

with me. He wouldn’t lie, and simply hated having me.”

Lewis was suddenly aware of sounds out in the reception room. Somebody

coughed—to get his attention, he imagined. It would be the Philadelphia

people, with their son. He said in a low voice to Petra, and hurriedly,

“Go wash your face now, while I call the taxi. We’ll charge the mileage

to office expenses, so don’t fuss.” And when Petra—her face innocent of

tear stains and well powdered—returned from the dressing room through

Miss Frazier’s door, Lewis was tipping two small white pills from the

palm of his hand into an envelope. He put the envelope, carefully

sealed, into the pocket of Petra’s polo coat, and said, “Take two when

you get to Green Doors. They’re a sedative. Then go to bed. Really to

bed. Make them give you dinner on a tray. It won’t matter, since Clare

and your father are away.—_Would_ they have gone to the Cape, do you

think, on this jaunt, if Dick had things straight? Of course they

wouldn’t. Put that out of your head.—By eight or so you’ll be rested.

Then we can talk. Get dressed and I’ll be out as near nine as I can

manage. Perhaps we can go over to the guest-house piazza? Like the first

time, remember? We’ll talk out the whole thing,—about Neil, I mean now.

And after all, you mustn’t tell Teresa. You’d better tell me. It will be

easier—and save Teresa from being hurt. _We’ll protect Teresa._ You want

to, don’t you?”

Then, because the bewildered look she gave him stabbed him almost beyond

endurance, he whispered—for the door all this while was open into the

reception room—“My dearest, everything will be all right. In the end.

Why, the whole world is waiting spread out for you, lovely long years of

your life. Things pass. Even loneliness passes. Truly. I have—been

lonely—and I know.”

Down at the curb the taxi driver opened the taxi door when he saw them

emerge from the foyer of the office building. But Lewis stopped short,

midway across the pavement. There was something more he must say, even

if those people were waiting for him up there in his office, the pale

mother holding the writhing idiot boy desperately in tired arms.

“Petra,” Lewis exclaimed, “we’re in this together, you and I. You can

trust my devotion as you’d trust a brother’s. If you had a brother, I

mean, who loved you very deeply! I’m going to help you get clear of the

spider web of Green Doors—and you can talk to me about Neil all you

want. You can tell me anything. You see, my dear, I’m fond of Neil too.

There’s nothing I won’t understand when you tell it.”

Petra took Lewis’ hand, lifted it, and pressed her mouth on its back. A

warm, quick kiss. There in the middle of the sidewalk on Marlborough

Street in the midst of the foot traffic! Then she ran, before Lewis

could follow her, and stumbled blindly into the taxi. The driver stayed

waiting a second to see whether Doctor Pryne was coming with the young

lady all the way to Meadowbrook, decided he wasn’t—Lewis gave him no

sign one way or the other—and shut the door. As the cab drove off, Petra

kept her face turned away so that Lewis could not see it.

_Chapter Twenty-Three_

As Lewis reëntered the reception office, Petra’s telephone was ringing.

It was Neil, calling Petra as he had promised, but one hour late. He was

surprised that it was Lewis who answered, but said hastily, “I’m

grateful it is you, Doctor. I’m calling from Meadowbrook. Is there any

chance, if I drive right in now, you could see me? It’s something pretty

important, Doctor!”

“About yourself?—Or Petra?” If McCloud had been there in the room,

instead of merely on the wire, he would have been shocked by the

expression on the face of the man of whom he was so confidently asking a

favor. The accustomed light was quite gone from Lewis’ features. He was

gray and stern and looked ten years older.

“It concerns us both. Equally, I guess,” was Neil’s reply after an

instant’s hesitation. “But I wouldn’t ask for your time like this if it

weren’t pretty important, Doctor.”

“Well, if you start now, I’ll be free about the time you get here. But

make it snappy, for I’ve half a dozen professional calls slated between

now and dinner.”

“Thanks awfully. Will you tell Petra I’m coming? I’d rather not talk to

her now. Tell her everything’s all right; I’ll explain everything when I

get there and she mustn’t worry.”

To this casual request Lewis made a sound that McCloud accepted as both

promise and good-by—and hung up. He had not even asked was Petra there.

But Meadowbrook? McCloud must be calling from Green Doors itself. Had he

been there all day? Had it been more than a sick tire that ailed his

car? Well, Lewis did not care about the details—just so long as Petra

and Neil did not see each other again until Lewis himself could talk

with Petra on the edge of the meadow to-night.

He went through into his own office where the tragic trio awaited him.

He took the boy from the mother’s arms. The poor little creature came

quietly, without the struggle the parents obviously expected, and from

that moment, so kind are the ways of God with mortals when they have

learned to pray, Lewis’ expectation of Neil’s near visit and even his

anguish for and over Petra were dropped from his consciousness until the

work in hand was over—until, in fact, he escorted the parents, himself

still holding the boy, out to the elevator, and saw Neil sitting in the

reception office in a patient attitude that bore the stamp of having

lasted some time.

“Hello,” Lewis remarked, coming back. “The coast is clear now.”

Neil followed him into his office and took the patients’ chair. But

memory assailed him in the act and he went a little pale. The feeling

passed quickly, however. That page had been turned forever, he knew

well. His cure was permanent. Heaven would not take back its boon.

“Where’s Petra?” he asked. “I suppose you packed her off to Meadowbrook

early. I’m glad.”

“Yes, I did exactly that. You didn’t pass her on the road?”

“No, but I wasn’t expecting to, you see. I drove like blazes. But I’m

going right back. Pretty plucky of Petra, don’t you think, to come right

along to work this morning! I couldn’t. I couldn’t have gone to work

this morning if not going would bring the end of the world.”

“Well, Petra’s not working on commission. We have to keep hours here,”

Lewis remarked shortly. “You’re your own boss. That’s different.”

Lewis could not interpret the odd, quick look Neil gave him then. But

that did not matter. What right had the man to sit there so victorious

and exalted, speaking of Petra! Petra’s face had grown thin over night.

There had been no exaltation and glow on its pallor this day. But Lewis

was aware that Neil’s exaltation—if that was the word for the light in

his face—was of a grave variety. Not blatant. It was refined of all

dross, to the most casual eye. Gorgeousness had given place to something

deeper, richer.... Lewis felt his own expression of countenance to be

evil. It was as if he could feel a thin mask forming over his

face,—particularly ugly around his mouth and eyes. He looked at Miss

Frazier’s door knob. He dared not look at McCloud any more. But hate had

not returned. Only the awful fear that it might return was stiffening

his lips,—his eyelids. For if it did return, here while he faced

McCloud, it would be hate of the killing sort. He would hurl himself at

the man physically, destroy him if he could—or be destroyed.... He had

better smoke. They had better both smoke.

Neil refused the cigarette. Well, the gods on Olympus didn’t smoke

little white cigarettes. But Lewis had no nectar to proffer this young

giant, face and body aglow with some sweet, secret victory, eyes

sea-blue and steady, long-limbed, free-postured, at ease in the

patients’ chair. What right had such a being to usurp the place where

misery came, year in year out? _Why in God’s name was Neil here?_

“Has Petra told you anything about last night?” Neil asked. “I guess she

hasn’t, or you wouldn’t have spoken about her having to keep hours as

you did just now.”

Lewis shook his head. Then he trusted his voice. “No. I know nothing.

Except that the child ran away from her birthday party last night,—said

she was going to bed with a headache but ran out the front door instead,

without a wrap, and got back at eight this morning, still in her party

dress and fagged almost to the danger point. But she’s going to tell me.

She wants to, I think. I am going out there to-night. Petra has let me

assume a responsibility to her. And I might as well tell you, McCloud,

that she is as precious to me—and her welfare as precious—as if she were

my own flesh and blood. You’d better understand that. Now what are you

here for?”

“That’s wonderful!” was the man’s surprising answer. “But I rather felt

that all along, you know. What I can’t understand is Petra’s not feeling

it, not trusting you before. But this is a grand time for her to begin.

She may never need you again so much as she needs you right now, Doctor.

She’s going to need steadying—and a lot of loving. I’m frightened for

her, myself. She’s such a kid, really, in spite of the way she swells

around with her _three_ jobs and keeps a stiff upper lip. You’d think

she was made of iron! But she isn’t. She’s really just a tender-hearted,

frightened kid. Teresa, you see, is mother, brother, sister, parents to

her, as well as friend. Teresa is home to Petra. All the home she’s ever

known. Sanctuary too. If—if anything happens—to—to Teresa—I shouldn’t

wonder if Petra goes right off her head.”

Where was the exaltation now? This was just a boy, fighting back sobs.

Lewis got up. He went to the window and sat on the sill, staring at

McCloud. But McCloud got control of himself quickly—and with it the

exalted look returned. His eyes were blue fire and so terribly steady.

Lewis said, “Neil, I don’t know a thing. Petra has been secret with me.

From the beginning—or almost from the beginning. I thought you and she

were together last night. I’ve got it all wrong. What was it really?

Something to do with Teresa Kerr?”

Neil got up then. He came and sat on Lewis’ desk, his feet in Lewis’

chair. He hadn’t taken in what Lewis meant about himself and Petra—at

least not its implication. It simply passed him by.

“We _were_ together,” he said. “I was there. Teresa was terribly ill. It

must have been about ten o’clock when it started. Janet got the doctor

and Father Morris on the telephone. But I’m worried about that doctor. I

don’t like him or trust him much. Clark’s his name. He has a general

practice in Meadowbrook. He knows all about you, of course, but says you

won’t know him. I told him I was coming to ask you to see Teresa and

advise us. _He_ says Teresa’s got to go right off to a sanitarium.

There’s one in New Mexico that he says is her only chance. He says she

ought to start to-morrow. But I don’t take any stock in him. Neither

does Janet Frazier. She says you are the one who will know what we ought

to do. Janet is sure—”

But Lewis interrupted: “Neil McCloud! Start over, will you. I can’t seem

to catch on to what all this is about. You were at Teresa Kerr’s last

night? How does Miss Frazier come into it? Where does Teresa live?”

“It’s a little house between Meadowbrook and Green Doors. Off the road.

You’ve never seen it, probably. Nobody does. It’s right off the road—in

another world. The girls call it Mary’s Field. Teresa’s got a touch of

consumption. That’s why she’s there this summer. So that she can live

practically out of doors. On the porch. She was there, in the long

chair, last night. Janet and I had got supper together. Janet’s spending

her vacation there. We were talking, very gay. It was moonlight. Janet

has a mandolin. She’s good on it, too. Finally, quite late, Janet went

in to do the dishes. She wouldn’t let me come. So I stayed out with

Teresa. I was going in a few minutes, anyway. Getting back to Boston. I

was sitting there on the floor by Teresa’s chair. She was lying in the

long chair—almost flat. That’s what she’s had to do lately—whenever

she’s not sewing. She’s so terribly tired all the time! We weren’t

talking any more. I thought she’d better rest. I was trying to make

myself go home. Suddenly she sat up straight with a queer sound in her

throat. I jumped up. She put out her hands. Blood came from her mouth.

It was only moonlight but I knew it was blood. I thought—we both

thought—she was dying. We said things we’d never have said if we hadn’t

thought so. But that’s all right. God intended it, I guess. I called

Janet. She got Doctor Clark on the telephone—and then Father Morris.

Father Morris is pastor of St. Joseph’s in Meadowbrook. It’s been

Teresa’s church all summer. Father Morris seemed to know more than the

doctor what to do for Teresa. The doctor just stood around and scolded

us about Teresa’s having worked so hard on Petra’s birthday dress. A

good thing Petra wasn’t there then! It was Father Morris who told us

Teresa wasn’t dying. He and Petra, when Petra came, had the coolest

heads of us all. They managed everything. Petra and I stayed with Teresa

on the porch all night. She couldn’t sleep and Father Morris advised

against any drug. We just stayed there quiet. Close to her. At dawn she

went to sleep and Janet made us eat breakfast. I took Petra back to

Green Doors. We thought Teresa was all right then, you see. But early

this afternoon, Doctor Pryne, she had another hemorrhage. That’s why I

didn’t call Petra as I promised to. I didn’t want her to know until she

got to Mary’s Field this afternoon and could see how really better

Teresa seems, in spite of this second hemorrhage. She’s seemed so well

all day—even strong! She even wanted to sit up, but we haven’t let her.

Father Morris came to the house just before I did call you and said I’d

better not wait for Petra’s consent to our asking you to see Teresa. He

urged me to drive right in and bring you both out. He says Teresa is

very seriously ill, now, in spite of her feeling so well, and he feels

that we must do something as quickly as possible. He knows about you and

your work and was sure you’d come for Petra’s sake. You will, won’t

you?” Neil had told it all quickly, his eyes never leaving Lewis’.

“Of course, Neil. You don’t need to ask! But tell me more. Is this why

money is so important to Petra? Had she been supporting Teresa with the

allowance I was the cause of her losing? Of course. How blind I’ve

been!”

“Teresa makes Petra’s clothes and Petra pays her for that. Teresa’s got

the devil’s own pride. She insists on earning her money, even when she

can’t hold up her head. So you can’t say Petra’s been exactly supporting

Teresa. She went to Radcliffe, you know, on a scholarship and evenings

making Petra’s clothes. The idea was that when Teresa got her degree and

a job—perhaps one like Janet’s—Petra would kiss Clare good-by and live

with Teresa and go to some business college herself. They had it all

worked out. Teresa was so quick and worked so hard, she hoped to

graduate in less than four years. Petra’s ‘job’ at Green Doors was to be

merely temporary. That is how she has been able to stand it. But last

spring, when everything was working out beautifully, the college doctor

found that Teresa had T.B. and they wouldn’t let her take her exams.

They said she must live in the country, out of doors, all this summer.

Petra found the house. She furnished it—borrowed ahead on her allowance.

The place belongs to a farmer named Murray and it’s always been called

‘Murray’s Field.’ But Teresa understood it ‘Mary’s Field’ and took it

without seeing it on account of the name! It’s been easy to keep

Teresa’s living there secret from Green Doors—it’s so out of the way.

But that’s where Petra has been wrong. Teresa would think so too, if she

knew. It’s like living a double life. All Petra’s excuses for being away

from Green Doors, you know! Teresa has never guessed how Petra’s had to

twist and turn. She’d never have let her! Teresa’s like truth itself.

But sometimes I have to laugh when I picture how astonished Clare would

be if she could see Petra Saturday afternoons, on her hands and knees,

scrubbing the kitchen floor at Mary’s Field—until I came along, that is.

I do the kitchen floor now on Saturdays!—Both the girls are death on

dirt. But lately Teresa hasn’t been able even to wash the dishes and

Petra’s done all the cleaning ever since they took the house.—What’s the

matter, Pryne?”

“Why didn’t you trust me? Why did you all leave me out so long?”

“We did trust you. We do. Absolutely. Janet and I, at least. But Petra’s

been so afraid all the time! Afraid you wouldn’t keep it from Clare. She

says you belong to Green Doors—not Mary’s Field. Petra’s a grand kid but

she’s stubborn.”

“Well—let’s get going.”

“To Mary’s Field?”

“Where else? Petra’s bound to be there, I should think. And I’d better

see Teresa for myself before taking a specialist to her. You shut the

windows, Neil, while I just write up this card for the files. I’ll have

to cut out the calls I was making, for Father Morris may be right, that

quick action is needed. Meadowbrook may not be the place for Teresa to

stay,—but I hardly think we’ll send her so far as New Mexico—”

All the while Lewis talked, he was outlining his recent interview with

the idiot boy’s parents in illegible characters on a fresh white card.

His heart was shaken to its depths but his head and hand were steady.

_Chapter Twenty-Four_

“It’s the next turn to the right now. Go slow or you’ll miss it. It

looks like a cart road—a wood road.... Here ’tis. Yes, it’s all right.

My car’s gone over it hundreds of times.”

It was the roughest sort of track, cut through a beech wood, up a hill.

They had driven out in Lewis’ car, leaving Neil’s parked in Marlboro

Street. A quarter of a mile of rough going, a turn, and suddenly Lewis

saw the farmhouse through lacings of bare branches straight ahead. It

was set halfway up a sloping meadow with an orchard at its back. The

little old clapboarded dwelling was the color of the branches through

which Lewis was seeing it, silver-gray-black-violet. In some lights,

particularly after summer rains, the clapboards would be opal.

Neil suggested that they leave the car at the bottom of the meadow and

walk up. “Teresa may be sleeping. She won’t be expecting to hear a car

at this time of day, anyway, and it might startle her. The milkman

brings the groceries along with his milk once a day and that’s the only

car except mine that ever comes. We didn’t tell her I was bringing you.

We didn’t know you could get away. We thought we’d wait to explain—”

The doorstep, a flat stone, had beguiled the doorsill to follow its own

smooth sunken curve. The door stood open into a passage which appeared

nothing but transition to clearer, finer country, for it was open at its

farther end onto long rows of crooked old bare apple trees twisted by

many years of bearing into mysterious contours of beauty. And through

the orchard one saw the rounded, mellow slope of the hilltop, outlining

a horizon.

There is an orchard, old and rare,—

I cannot tell you where,—

With green doors opening to the sun.

Green doors! This was the green doors that Clare had hoped to hymn—and

missed the note. “_I cannot tell you where!_” Cannot because there is no

telling it. In this moment of remembering the lines which had given

Clare her inspiration for Green Doors, and which she often quoted,

Lewis’ antipathy for Clare was transmuted into unalloyed pity. Clare

wanted the beautiful and good in her life. Sincerely wanted it. But she

thought it was necessary to spin it out of herself

somehow,—industriously, cleverly spin, spin, spin. It never occurred to

her to search for the Beautiful Good, or to love It for Itself in Its

objective reality. She was too busy, all times, manufacturing its

semblance out of fancy.

Yes. As Lewis stepped over the sill into the little old passage to the

crooked, beautiful orchard, a kaleidoscope shift took place in his

sympathy. And at the same moment the experience of the early morning was

upon him again; _he had been through all this before. He knew this

passage, that orchard, by heart._ He knew, too, that grief (he had been

wrong in this much of the morning’s prevision: it was grief but never

tragedy) was waiting him here at the real Green Doors.

Miss Frazier came through a door halfway down the passage and met them.

She said in a lowered voice, “You’ve come! Everything will be all right

now. I knew you’d come. Go into the living room, please, and I’ll

explain to Teresa. Or Neil, you come with me. You will be better than I.

We haven’t told her Neil was bringing you, you see, Doctor.”

“Where’s Petra?” Lewis asked quickly.

“She took a rug and her coat and went up into the orchard to sleep. She

took your sedative first. But she wants to know when you come. I

promised. She wouldn’t have rested unless. She doesn’t know about the

second hemorrhage, or what Father Morris has said. She thinks Teresa is

better.”

Lewis went into the living room. And even before his eyes began

assembling details, he knew, with a start, that everything was here that

he had looked to find this morning in Petra’s bedroom at Green Doors.

This was her environment, her sanctuary, her own place in the sun. He

felt Petra’s heart beating in this little room, no matter if they said

she was up in the orchard, sleeping. The wide old boards of the floor

slanted and dipped as the doorsill had slanted and dipped—fluid—one with

the flow of life and time. And there, across the room, between two

low-silled windows was the birthday present, his own Fra Angelico

picture—perfectly hung. So Petra had brought it here, not to Green

Doors. But of course. And under the Fra Angelico there were flowers

growing in a dish. Fringed, blue gentians. A big, living clump of them.

Planted in dark earth. It is impossible to gather them without the

roots, Lewis knew, hence the replanting. On the table, beside the

gentians, lay a book, open and face down.

Lewis, with an instinct to save any book, no matter what it was, from

abuse, crossed the floor; he would find a marker and close the volume

kindly. But when he had it in his hand, it defended its owner with dumb

sweetness. It was a Modern Library publication, made for easy usage; the

only value it set on itself the value of its word,—spirit not flesh.

Lewis glanced at the title: “Marius the Epicurean.” Memory stirred. This

was the book—wasn’t it?—Petra had claimed to have been reading when she

did not come to play tennis with Clare that day Lewis first went to

Green Doors! The identical volume. He was sure of it. So Clare had been

wrong—as, poor creature, she was ever in peril of being: Petra had been

reading “Marius” that afternoon. She had been lying out there in the

orchard, near the horizon, side by side with Teresa. They had lain

supported by their elbows, turn and turn about, reading “Marius”

together. Lewis knew all about that afternoon now, as well as if he had

been here himself, in the golden orchard with green doors opening to the

sun, sharing “Marius” with them!

And he was glad to know! Then, that June Saturday, he had told himself

it was nothing if Petra wanted to impress Clare with reading she had

never done. It didn’t matter. It was a trivial schoolgirl variety of

deception. But now he knew that it had mattered. He had cared more than

a little, deep down in his heart. It had left a mark, a tiny wound, but

still tender enough to feel the healing in this moment of discovery.

A paper fluttered from “Marius,” held open and face down in Lewis’ hand.

He rescued it from the floor and stood staring. It was his own picture,

cut from the rotogravure section of the _New York Times_,—a photograph

of the head that young Italian artist, Ponini, had made when Lewis was

in New York last spring, testifying in the Spalding murder case. Ponini

had been one of the State’s witnesses. He had introduced himself to

Lewis outside the courtroom and persuaded him to sit for him a few times

during that tedious week of the trial. Ponini had won surprising acclaim

for this particular work, and photographs of the head had been published

endlessly, till Lewis was sick of opening magazine or paper and seeing

it. But Petra! She had chanced on it, cut it out and preserved it. She

must have done this before that Saturday when they met again at Green

Doors. This was Petra’s writing, in the narrow white margin. She had

written “Marius.”

But this was carrying things beyond strangeness—into truth itself, which

cannot be strange or startling! Years ago, in college, Lewis had

identified himself with Marius. A peculiarly poignant identification it

had been.—Marius, born on the fringes of Christianity but never

amalgamated into it. Always wistful, speculative, skeptical. Infinitely

skeptical—but passionately searching. Drawn poignantly toward Christians

whenever they came into his life. Loving them beyond others with a sure,

contented love. Dying finally to save one of them from death. Ministered

to in the act of dying by Christians who took it for granted that the

martyr to friendship was one of themselves. Marius hungering for

Christianity but never attaining communion with it until the instant of

his death—and then attaining it by affinity and accident rather than

conviction! But how had Petra seen Lewis in all this? How had Petra

known!

Lewis replaced the marker in the book, and the book face down, open at

the place he had found it, beside the gentians. Thin October late

afternoon sunlight slanted through the little, low-ceiled room, casting

a transparency over the white, old paneled walls and the wine-colored

floorboards. It was a blest light. There was a blessing on this place.

And the blessing, for Lewis, suddenly seemed flowing in one direction

and coming to form and color in the clump of blue gentians under the Fra

Angelico.

_Chapter Twenty-Five_

Teresa’s bed was on the porch off the dining room. Miss Frazier took

Lewis as far as the door and left him to go out alone. But Neil was

there, sitting on the foot of Teresa’s bed. There was room for no more

than Teresa’s narrow cot, her long chair, a table and one other little

wicker chair. Yet Lewis, who had a penchant for spaciousness, had no

sense of crowding here. On the contrary, he felt that coming onto

Teresa’s little porch was like coming out onto deck at sea. The disused

farmlands rolled wavelike away on every side, with no glimpse of

dwelling or human being anywhere; all was soft, long sweep of meadow and

field, climbing waves of woodland, and over all the flowing sky.

Teresa’s cot stood against the outer edge of the porch, protected above

by deep eaves. Over its head, a dark crucifix, tarnished silver, and

about a foot high, was nailed against a supporting post.

Not a breath of change seemed to have passed over Teresa since that

October day four years ago, when she had opened the door for Lewis in

the Farwells’ Cambridge apartment. She was fresh and vivid, with smiles

rippling to light in brown-gold eyes, and an unselfish, lovely mouth,

molded by gaiety and humor. And her voice, exactly as Lewis had

remembered it through the years, bore out the smile in her eyes. Yes,

Teresa was still all of one piece—spirit and body one. Lewis saw an

almost palpable bloom upon her—not the bloom of health, since she was

emaciated and flushed with fever—but a bloom, all the same, of freshness

and well-being.

Neil pushed the wicker chair a few inches nearer the side of the bed for

Lewis’ benefit. Lewis, taking the chair, was moved by the effect the

dark crucifix, bathed in afternoon light from New England earth and sky,

produced on his mood. For, out of doors like this, superimposed against

New England fields and sky, the crucifix threw new proportions, as it

were, athwart Lewis’ concepts. It produced space for infinities and

eternities of joyful well-being. Without analyzing it—indeed scarcely

noting it—Lewis accepted the shifting of proportions, the touch of

sweetness his passing glance at the cross had brought, with simple

gratitude: an unuttered thank-you to the Savior.

Neil was saying, “I’ll be within call, Doctor, if you want anything.” As

Neil spoke, he came around past Lewis’ shoulder and adjusted Teresa’s

pillow, his arm for an instant back of it, under her shoulders. “Isn’t

that better? Is it all right, Teresa?”

The look that passed between the boy and the girl then was one that

Lewis charged his heart to remember. It was love, of course. And love

between a man and a woman. Complete recognition of all that such love

implies. Yet, although this recognition was no new thing with them, they

had kissed each other only when both thought Teresa was dying, and in

farewell. And beyond this, not even in farewell—since they were

forewarned, having “fallen” once—their lips would never touch again this

side of Paradise. Lewis knew. If Neil had not confided in him on the

drive here, by silences and broken words, Lewis would still have seen

the definiteness of their renunciation in the light of the smiling

glance that had passed between them as Neil adjusted the pillow, and

known that their love held no flaw of possible betrayal in it. These two

were at peace with their Faith and everything of both agony and joy that

it entailed for them. But this was not renunciation as religionless

moralists think of it. It was simplicity, the simplicity of spiritual

health.

When Neil had gone, leaving Lewis and the sick girl alone, Lewis was

suddenly shy of Teresa. It was she who should measure his health, not he

hers. For it is not the whole but the sick who need a physician. Yet he

took Teresa’s wrist, lying there on her counterpane, and started

counting her pulse.

Then Teresa laughed—putting him off, making him lose the count. “I

thought you never made an examination without Janet to take down notes,”

she protested. “She’s here, quite handy. Sha’n’t we call her?”

“No, thanks. This is an exception. I’ll remember well enough.” And

indeed he would. Every word that Teresa gave him, as he asked it, of

family history, the course of the development of her disease and the

treatment it had had, was etched on his mind for all of life, he felt.

He needed no filing card for Teresa. But neither had he needed her

answers to his short, quick questions. When he came to it, the

examination he gave her lungs told him that she was doomed.

After that examination he sat back, trying to smile at Teresa, trying to

be natural. Wasn’t there something simple and of ordinary day that he

could say? But he was shy of this girl as he had never been shy of any

one in all this mortal world before. Shy but not ill at ease. It was

good to be here, he felt. Simply that.

Teresa was smiling into his attempted smile. “Are you really all done?”

she asked.

“I think so. The specialists will be more thorough, of course. But I

know what to do now, what man we want for you.”

“But you will tell me what you think yourself, Doctor? How ill I am?”

She put her hand under her pillow as she asked the brave question and

kept it there. Lewis knew that she had found her rosary and was holding

it. “They say—Neil and Doctor Clark—even Petra—that I must go away to a

sanitarium somewhere. Leave Mary’s Field. But that won’t happen, will

it? I can stay here. I needn’t leave Mary’s Field. Is that what you

think?”

Lewis had no lies for Teresa. He would not lie to her by so much as a

glance. She was fit for the truth. Perfectly fit. Had he ever been face

to face with any one else so stripped, fit and ready for truth!

“There won’t be any question about that now. I’m sure of so much,” Lewis

said. “We’ll keep you right here at Mary’s Field. And Petra will stay

with you all the time. Move her things here. Make it her home. And Neil

will be near.”

She was smiling. Her hand stayed under her pillow. But tears came to her

eyes. Only two escaped, though: one down either cheek. She ignored them

but Lewis wiped them away with his own handkerchief. “My blessed child,”

he said. “You wanted to know. It is right that you should, I think.”

“Of course,” she answered. “And I knew that you would tell me. I am—very

satisfied. It will be nice, not leaving Mary’s Field. Having Petra here

all the time. Having Neil near. Will you tell them how things are with

me? You won’t leave it for me to tell them?”

“Yes. Soon, I’ll tell them. But not to-night, I think. They aren’t like

you, Teresa. It will go harder with them. They will need time—and your

prayers. You must pray that they may be brave. Neil suspects already, I

can tell you. But he still hopes. Petra has only a bewildered, vague

fear. So Neil says, anyway. They needn’t be told yet.”

“But when the time comes, it will be you—not Neil, nor Janet—nobody else

but you, Doctor Pryne,—who tells Petra? Unless it’s me. I may want to be

the one to tell her in the end. But otherwise you? And you’ll take care

of her?”

“Why do you say this? Petra is the dearest thing in life to me, Teresa.

But I don’t know that that will help her. She doesn’t let me very close

to her. Neil or Janet might be better.”

“Please tell her now, this afternoon, that she’s the dearest thing in

life to you. She doesn’t dream it. She’s so silly and humble. She’s

sweet. She told me, just a little while ago, before she took your pills

like a good child and went away to sleep in the meadow, that Dick had

showed you that letter she wrote to him at Mount Desert. She’s simply

dying with humiliation over it. You see, it was you, Doctor, she meant

in the letter, and she has no other thought but that you know it was.

That you might guess wrong hasn’t even occurred to her. You _did_ guess

wrong, didn’t you?”

Lewis pushed back his chair. Got up. “Teresa, bless you. I wouldn’t

believe any one but you—hardly Petra herself. It’s almost impossible to

believe. But somehow—I can—I do believe that you know what you are

saying.”

“You’re like Petra, I think. Humble and silly. But sweet.”

Neil, who for the last ten minutes or so had been pacing back and forth

in the meadow, out of earshot and where Lewis did not see him, had

started for the porch the minute Lewis moved back his chair. “All done?”

he asked, coming up onto the porch and looking at Lewis for one swift,

keen instant. Lewis nodded. “Yes and I want to see Petra. Is she still

sleeping?”

“Oh, no. Janet kept her promise and woke her when you came. She’s in the

kitchen, starting the supper. She and Janet—Teresa too—want you to stay

for supper with us. Petra’s getting it started early on purpose, so you

will. Janet’s gone across lots for an extra quart of milk just on the

chance. You won’t disappoint us, Doctor?”

“First let me use the telephone. If McKinstry can come out this evening,

I’ll want to wait and see him. That will make supping here very

convenient. Don’t talk to this girl too much now. She should rest,

Neil.”

Neil laughed. “I won’t talk at all then. One doesn’t, much, with Teresa.

She’s the conversationalist of our Mary’s Field crowd. Have you told her

to keep quiet, not talk?”

Lewis shook his head, smiling down into Teresa’s eyes. “No,” he said. “I

haven’t told her anything. Given no orders. Teresa is wiser than all of

us put together. She’s her own best physician.”

But in the end, Lewis merely stood thoughtful by the telephone in the

passage for an instant, and turned away, toward the kitchen. McKinstry,

immediately Lewis asked it, if he could be reached at all by telephone

to-day, would be at Lewis’ disposal; and if he were out of town or not

on the telephone, there would be some one else available who was good,

too. But there was no hurry. Getting a trained nurse out to Mary’s Field

was of far more immediate importance than getting a specialist. Miss

Frazier would help Lewis with that, when she returned with the milk.

Lewis himself couldn’t remember the name of that woman who had taken

such excellent care of the little Nolan girl last month. But Miss

Frazier, Janet, would remember. She would remember, too, how one could

reach her. The woman should come to-night, of course. Sleep here. Or

failing her, some one else whom Janet would recommend. He could wait for

Janet for all that.

Lewis went on down the passage to the kitchen door. It was the kitchen,

supposedly, since Neil had said that Petra was here, and here she was;

but for Lewis it was no special place at all. It was merely Petra. He

had come to where Petra was, at last. Come up with her. He felt as if he

had been running a long time through dark eternities to this overtaking

of his beloved. Between Petra and himself there now only remained a

little space of thin, late afternoon light. Blessed light! He saw her

through it as through thin glass—a pace away.

She was standing close up against an open window. Her back to it. She

was looking at Lewis through the glass-thin radiant atmosphere. Then

Lewis heard Teresa say, “Janet was careful not to disturb the chessmen,

Neil. The board’s on the dining-room table. Shall we finish the game?”

Neil said, “Sure, in a minute. Let me have a cigarette first, though,

and just stay by you. You lie quiet. Shut your eyes, dear.”

Petra was facing Lewis, yes; but she was not seeing him. She was stone

blind with tears. She had been here in the open window all the time. The

porch came within a few feet of it. It must, since those voices—Neil’s

and Teresa’s—sounded almost as if they were in the very room. And yet,

they were speaking softly. Every bit as softly as Lewis and Teresa had

been speaking. Petra had heard every word Lewis and Teresa had said,

then. She knew—she knew—why, the child knew that Teresa was going to

die. That was as far as Lewis’ thought went. Brutally, like that, merely

overhearing, she had learned it. With no warning. Alone, here in the

kitchen,—with supper to get.

Lewis could not move. Could not speak. He thought his heart would break

for Petra. But though she was stone blind, she had heard him come into

the passage, hesitate by the telephone, and then his every step to the

kitchen door. And now she whispered, “Are you there?”

At that he took the last pace—in a stride. The long race was over. She

was no longer a flying, mysterious shadow. Petra was flesh and blood

within his arms. But their first kiss had a taste he had not dreamed for

it. It was salt with both their tears.

As they drew apart, but not their hands—palm against palm they still

held each other securely—Neil’s laugh was ringing in their ears. Quite

heartily Neil was laughing, out there on the porch, sitting on the foot

of Teresa’s cot, at something she just had said.